Due to ARMM failure, MILF will have tough time selling Moro ‘substate’ proposal: Report

MANILA — Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are going back to the negotiating table wary about each other’s capacity to deliver on commitments, a new report by the International Crisis Group said.

The group said “the success of peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF will depend on each side convincing the other that it has the will and capacity to deliver – and both have doubts.”

The report, The Philippines: Back to the Table, Warily, in Mindanao, which was released today, looks at the variety of factors that will influence the outcome of negotiations that resumed in February under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III.

MILF fighters in Maguindanao. (Photo by Carlos H. Conde)

“Quite apart from the difficulty of negotiating the territory and powers of a sub-state, Manila wonders about the MILF’s command and control, especially given a recent split, and the MILF wonders about the government’s backbone,” says Bryony Lau, the ICG’s Southeast Asia analyst. “On top of this, many in both Mindanao and Manila are skeptical that any autonomous entity can rise above the corruption, clan feuds and warlordism that plague the region.”

ICG cited what it called “hard truths” that both sides have to contend with.

“One is that sooner or later, these talks will have to converge with separate negotiations over much of the same territory between the government and a rival insurgency, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which is smaller and deeply divided. Half-hearted efforts to encourage a common MILF-MNLF strategy have fallen by the wayside, but it may be time for some sustained initiatives by civil society at a grassroots level and by international partners with the groups’ leaders.”

Another is that the existing Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) “has been so dysfunctional that the MILF needs to do more to convince skeptics, even in its own heartland, that the sub-state they are working for will be a qualitative improvement. The disillusionment with ARMM has come into focus in recent months with an intense debate about whether or not elections for the region’s governor, originally scheduled for August 2011, should be postponed for two years to allow a caretaker administration to do some serious housecleaning.”

The Aquino administration has deemed the ARMM a failure and is pushing to postpone an upcoming elections in the region, opening the possibility for Aquino to appoint officials there. Moro officials and critics have lashed out at the idea, calling it dictatorial.

ICG said the “talks underway now could produce one of three outcomes: a final peace; protracted negotiations that never reach an end but have enough forward momentum to keep the MILF rank and file on board; or breakdown.”

“History is not on the side of successful resolution, and the obstacles are enormous”, says Sidney Jones, Crisis Group Senior Adviser to the Asia Program, “but this time the combination of new political will in Manila and low expectations in Mindanao may just be a formula that succeeds”. (PinoyPress)

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